I Cried, Decided to Be a Better Mom, Then Yelled at My Kids

Yesterday I read the words of a mama [2]who had just lost her 8 year old daughter, her beautiful Daisy Love[3], to cancer.

8 years old.

My oldest is 7.

I bawled my eyes out.

I said over and over, “It is settled in my heart that God is good.”

Then I cried some more.

And then I decided, as the mama said, to “Enjoy your gift. Breathe in the scent of your child’s hair, breathe. Let them cook with you and make a mess of the kitchen. Play hide and seek with them, build sand castles with them, take them on picnics, read to them! Listen to them, value and respect them, never shame them. Your words they will carry with them their whole life and you have the power to give them wings or stunt their growth. Motherhood can be tough but it’s worth it. It can be exhausting, boring, tedious, but never for long. You blink and they’re grown.”

(I might cry again just posting this.)

{deep breath}

I went upstairs, hugged my babes, smiled at them, and about 10 minutes later was all, “If someone asks me for ONE MORE THING…!”

True story.

My renewed vision for motherhood lasted about 10 minutes.

Life doesn’t become easier just because we realize how sacred it is, or how quickly it can be gone, or how we might not have our little one to hold tomorrow. Life moves forward, and our sin-disease moves right along with it. Sin doesn’t give us a break, or care about our little ones, or pause when we need to re-group.

We have to live in the tension of “breathing in” our precious kids and not missing the “blink” while also dealing with our sin-junk.